....The X3239 telephone number has been the subject of many discussions over the years, some repeatedly.
But what can now be said about it? My recent trip down to Glenelg and some great input from the team told us a few things.
1. The house at 90A Moseley Street is a duplex, Both 90 and 90A sit beneath the same roof with 90A facing the road and 90 it appears, at the Northern side of the building.
As Peter Davidson pointed out, this means that any disturbance within 90A would have been overheard thus lessening the chance that the Somerton Man was somehow dealt with at that address.
1. The house at 90A Moseley Street is a duplex, Both 90 and 90A sit beneath the same roof with 90A facing the road and 90 it appears, at the Northern side of the building.
As Peter Davidson pointed out, this means that any disturbance within 90A would have been overheard thus lessening the chance that the Somerton Man was somehow dealt with at that address.
A Mystery Unravelled
But, back to the number, thanks to another team member we now know that the name Thomson did not appear in the Sands & Mcdougal Directory until 1949. You see the 1948 directory was published on the available information from 1947 and that would be the same for the telephone directory. What that means is that the name Thomson did not appear in the 1948 Telephone directory for the 90A Moseley Street address. So, how did the telephone number appear on the code page? Who would have put it there? How would they have known it? Good questions.
One explanation is that Jess, on moving into the house, called the exchange and asked for the number. Another would be that someone who knew the number had given it to the Somerton Man if indeed it was him that wrote out the code page. Detective Brown is on record as saying that he simply dialed the number to discover who lived at the house.
Next question!
The name known and printed in the 1948 telephone directory was not Prosper McTaggart Thomson as it was in the 1949 directory.
In 1948 the name of the occupier for number 90A Moseley Street was Ross. A, and for number 90 was Farrer FK.
In 1947 the name shown in th directory for 90A Moseley Street was Lyndan H.A.
These names would be worth following wouldn't you think?
The same number, X3239 turns up in Brisbane, Sydney, and Melbourne as well as Adelaide.
The final question is this, in those days was the same telephone number allocated to the address and then handed over to the next resident? I recall that in the UK that was certainly the case when taking over a rental property from another person, you took that old number as yours. Some amusing tales of unusual calls being received by the new occupiers. If this was the case, then Detective Brown's explanation fits the scenario. He dialed and spoke with Jess and the rest is history. But did they ever check to see who was the previous occupier and therefore possible owner of that number?
Curiously, It seems that according to Gerry Feltus' Unknown Man book, Jess moved to Moseley Street in late 1947.
Links to pages where you are able to verify or substantiate content are of course, very important, below are two links that you may find helpful:
Almanacs & Directories South Australia, 1900 - 1973:
Telephone Directories South Australia:
1952 to 1953 & 1955 to 1969: https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/1464977. I have been unable to find a publicly available online version of SA Telephone numbers for 1947. Privately held copies of the 1947 SA telephone Directory may exist but, there are no links to them. In the end, it is all about being able to show and prove the provenance or in this case the verifiable source of the information. If that's able to be done then that's fine as far as the phone number goes.
But, and it's a big but, we still have the issue of other names of people who were apparently living at the 90A Moseley Street address in 1947 and 1948.
FOR THE RECORD:
This Blog was the first to post about the fact that the same number appeared in other States including the newspaper ads for a Brighton Victoria address.
Links Below:
Missing Pieces Video
In 2018 a video of the Somerton Man story was produced, many of the claims made within the video have since been superseded following another announcement from Professor Abbott about the identity of the Somerton Man. It is no longer thought that the Somerton Man was the father of Jess's son Robin. It has transpired that in fact Prosper, Jess's husband, was the father. Whilst Professor originally made the claim, he does mention in the film that he could be wrong. Here's the link to the 2018 film,
'Missing Pieces':